Moderation

 "When America didn’t exist men and women were compelled to invent it, BECAUSE MANKIND CANNOT EXIST WITHOUT FREEDOM AND STILL BE FULLY HUMAN."

So reads the tea party declaration of independence (by "admin;" at http://countyroots.com/policynotparty/). Of all the views expressed in the declaration, many are too extreme to be taken seriously. For instance, the sentence above implies that no one was human until 1776. It begs the question: why have Homo Sapiens lived for so many millenia, and not been compelled to invent America until so recently?

"Men and women where compelled to invent America because they could not exist without freedom." This rephrasing is moderate and hard to refute. If "admin" had applied a similar treatment to the whole document, it would be more believable and powerful.

Facts

Writes Howard Zinn in A People's History of the United States:  "Ruling elites seem to have learned through generations--consciously or not--that war makes them more secure against internal trouble" (79).

Take the cold war as an example: McCarthy and other leaders of the red scare created rabid anti-communism, impairing the ability of unions the strike and reinforcing class distinctions. Walt Disney's fear of socialism certainly contributed to his "I will not negotiate with reds" attitude toward the strikers at his animation studios. Like many facts in Zinn, this is depressing but true. Johnson always glorifies the mythical figures in history, probably leaving readers all warm and patrotic inside. That comparison reminded of a quote from my statistics teacher, Anthony Becker,

"Facts make you cynical," which reminded of a quote from Stephen Lucas:

"In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it [the word "fact"] was used most frequently to denote an evil deed or a crime" (The Stylistic Artistry of the Declaration of Independence).

Reading Zinn, it sometimes seems like most historical facts really are evil deeds or crimes.

Chuckles

Writes Jim Cullen on pg 35 of The American Dream:

"The Puritans remain vivid precisely because they're so irritating."

The Puritans are the antithesis of our modern society, full of negative freedom. Cullen's amusing remark animates this point.

Tea Time Tenty Ten

 

Just as we were discussing Tea Parties in class, I received an invitation to one! Alas, going all the way back to Washington is a tad far for a tea party, but I would like to point out who is drinking tea and why.

The Tea Party was coordinated Sophia Trinh--Environmental representative to the ASG of Bellevue College. Besides drinking fair trade tea (out of your own cup and not a disposable one), partiers can eat cupcakes and swap clothes (a form of recycling). The values of these tea partiers extend beyond the environment to social justice--consider that fair trade has nothing to do with the environment. They hold stereotypical liberal values-, such as environmental and social justice.

Why tea? Why not coffee, or hot chocolate? For seem reason, stereotypical liberals hold a fascination with ancient China. Yoga, Buddhism, meditation, and tea all wrapped up in this. The particular brand of tea that is at the tea party--Tazo--has tidbits of ancient Chinese wisdom under the bottle caps, and the back of the labels have jokes about Buddhism, meditation, monks and tea. The colonists drank tea to show class, among many other reasons. In this case, everyone can afford tea. Tea is a symbol of a value system shared by people who are friends with the Environmental Representative.